In view of this, where is the difference whether infants or adults? The decree of God—his design—settled the matter before they were born, and made it so definite, that the number can neither be increased nor diminished, and that, too, without any foresight of faith or good works in the creature. The immutable _decree_ and _design_ of God has settled the matter, and that, too, before time began. The elect can never be lost, and the non-elect can never be saved, no matter whether infants or adults. To unchangeably foreordain an infant to everlasting death, is no worse than to foreordain a man to everlasting death—_design_ him to it before he was created. But we must, since the account is opened, administer yet another item or two on this matter. “Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion,” is a standard work among Presbyterians, and used as a text-book in their theological schools. Let us hear from this work, Vol. I. page 166: “Hence appears the perverseness of their disposition to murmur, because they intentionally suppress the cause of condemnation, while they are constrained to acknowledge it themselves, hoping to excuse themselves by charging it upon God. But, though I ever so often admit God to be the Author of it, which is perfectly correct, yet this does not abolish the guilt impressed upon their consciences.” Calvin here says, to confess that God is the Author of sin, which is the cause of condemnation, “is perfectly correct.” Let us hear him again: “I confess, indeed, that all the descendants of Adam fell, by the Divine will, into that miserable condition in which they are now involved; and this is what I asserted from the beginning, that we must always return at last to the sovereign determination of God’s will, the cause of which is hidden in himself,” Inst., page 166. Here Calvin says, “Adam fell by the Divine will.” Let us hear him once more: “If God simply foresaw the fates of men, and did not also dispose and fix them, by his determination, there would be room to agitate the question, whether his providence or foresight rendered them at all necessary. But since he foresaw future events only in consequence of his decree that they should happen, it is useless to contend about foreknowledge, while it is evident that all things come to pass rather by ordination and decree.” Inst., page 171.